Couple take post-military struggles to Web

Nov. 11, 2013

Updated Nov. 12, 2013 7:19 a.m.

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Alex Minsky and Mylee Cardenas pose for a photo near their home in Costa Mesa. Alex lost his right leg in Afghanistan when a roadside bomb exploded, and Mylee who erved in Afghanistan, found out she had breast cancer, finished her tour, came back and had a double mastectomy. Both are featured in a pin- up calendar that benefits veterans care. CHRISTINE COTTER, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Pinups for Vets founder Gina Elise poses with five service members from different branches in the military. One of the men is retired Marine Alex Minsky, top left, who lost his leg from an IED explosion in Afghanistan in 2009. TIM HUNTER, PINUPS FOR VETS

Alex Minsky and Mylee Cardenas pose for a photo near their home in Costa Mesa. Alex lost his right leg in Afghanistan when a roadside bomb exploded, and Mylee who erved in Afghanistan, found out she had breast cancer, finished her tour, came back and had a double mastectomy. Both are featured in a pin- up calendar that benefits veterans care. CHRISTINE COTTER, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Pinups for Vets

What is it? Pinups for Vets is a nonprofit organization that UCLA alumna Gina Elise founded about five years ago. She wanted a way to raise money for hospitalized veterans, and was always fascinated by the images of women that adorned the sides of World War II aircrafts.

She decided to create and sell calendars that featured veterans and civilian advocates of veterans health.

Where can I get one? Visit pinupsforvets.com to order a calendar.

How much? $15

Alex Minsky is a retired Marine turned model, who lost part of his right leg during an explosion in Afghanistan. His girlfriend, Army Staff Sgt. Mylee Cardenas, is a single mother who waited until she returned from an eight-month tour in Afghanistan to fight – and defeat – breast cancer.

Minsky and Cardenas are fitness buffs, models, motivational speakers, survivors, veterans. Both use their own history and connections to bring attention to veterans' needs around the country.

They're speaking at a Veterans Day event in Hollywood today, and earlier this year they modeled for a pinup-style calendar with sales benefiting veterans' health.

And they navigate those experiences as a couple, helping each other through physical challenges and emotional ones along the way – whether it's with kind words or a little tough love.

Photo shoot makes amputee a star

Minsky, now 25, joined the military because he was young and wanted adventure.

So he became a Marine, and deployed to Afghanistan in 2009.

Minsky had been in Afghanistan for three weeks when the Humvee he was in passed over an improvised explosive device. He was left with severe brain damage, and doctors had to amputate his right leg. He also lost four months of memory – two on either side of the accident – and was in a coma for 47 days. His jaw was broken in three places and the skin had peeled off his right arm.

He was 19.

Minsky developed a drinking habit about a year later, after the realization he wouldn't be able to return to Afghanistan and the death of his brother in a hit-and-run.

Nearly two years and three drunken driving arrests later, a lucky opportunity through Veterans Court allowed Minsky to enter a rehabilitation facility instead of prison.

He had his first modeling shoot two days into his sobriety. Tom Cullis, an editorial photographer in Newport Beach, spotted Minsky at the gym and invited him to do a test shoot. Minsky needed a way to keep busy, so he agreed. The result was shots of Minsky modeling underwear, his prosthetic leg in full view.

The first photos circulated online quickly, catching the attention of veterans, women and other photographers who wanted to work with him. People started following Minsky on Facebook as he was entering sobriety and posting about it online, opening his recovery to thousands of new people.

“I was doing it to stay productive and to … give me something to do besides sit in a bar,” Minsky said.

Finishing the job, then fighting cancer

Cardenas, now 29, joined the Army after 9/11.

In August 2011, Cardenas deployed to Afghanistan as part of an Army cultural support team. Those are all-woman teams the military sends to villages, to become close to women and children, learn the problems from their points of view and help build governance and security. Female soldiers serve a unique role as a kind of “third gender” in these situations – the men in the villages speak to them because they are military, and the women and children, who usually do not communicate with men, speak to them as women, Cardenas said.

In November she noticed a lump on her breast, but ignored it so she could finish the eight-month tour. Cardenas returned to the United States in March to find out that she had stage 3 invasive ductal carcinoma. She began chemotherapy and 35 rounds of radiation, before undergoing a bilateral mastectomy.

But Cardenas refused to accept defeat from her situation – she ran a full marathon while on chemotherapy, and used the months away from active duty to have normal days with her daughter, Abrianna, who is now 9 years old. She also garnered a large online following and updated supporters on her status honestly, whether she was feeling optimistic or hopeless.

“I just looked at it like, I'm not going to let this cancer beat me, I'm going to kick (butt) and take names,” Cardenas said. “Nothing's a limitation, it's just something I have to break through.”

Couple bond through shared recovery

In Minsky's Costa Mesa apartment on Tuesday, he was still wired from their workout that morning.

Over the course of two hours, he put on his prosthetic, took it off, hopped on the couch, drummed his fingers along his tattooed left leg and meandered into the kitchen to snack. At one point he grabbed a guitar and perched on the couch's edge as Cardenas spoke, playing an impromptu song.

Cardenas, meanwhile, was anchored to an ottoman in the living room most of the time.

“He brings a little bit of lightness into her life where they can just kind of be silly and have fun,” said Jackie Minsky, Alex's mother. “I think what she brings to him is direction, focus.”

A mutual friend suggested that Cardenas look at Minsky's Facebook page. So one day in December, while she was in the hospital for eight hours of chemo, she did.

He had just posted a photo of himself at the Veterans Affairs hospital in West Los Angeles with the caption, “Being a patient patient.”

She could relate, so she did something uncharacteristic – messaged a stranger. They talked online for a few weeks, and he asked for her number.

Minsky was in rehab and Cardenas was losing her hair from all the chemotherapy, and trying to prepare for her mastectomy.

Cardenas was used to taking care of others, and liked figuring out what would help Minsky cope on any given day.

“We would try to out-motivate each other,” she said.

Now Cardenas lives with Minsky as she prepares to retire from the army – lymphedema in her left arm from surgery left her unfit for active duty, she said.

Minsky and Cardenas have more than 150,000 combined Facebook followers, and they both inspire people who are facing difficult situations, said Gina Elise, the founder of nonprofit Pinups for Vets. That's one reason she wanted them to be a part of her calendar.

Though Elise has been producing the calendars for about eight years to raise money for veterans health care, Cardenas is the first female veteran who's done a pinup shoot, and supporters can relate to both her story and Minsky's, Elise said.

“My accident was just one of hundreds, just that month,” Minsky said. “We're just trying to share our experience, strength and hope.”

And in their relationship, they've learned to help each other overcome insecurities.

At the gym on Tuesday morning, Minsky hoisted himself up and started doing pull-ups, after Cardenas could only do one because of the lymphedema.

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